


Freak Weather Conditions

by itsallAvengers



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Domestic Avengers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Irresponsible Use Of Magical Thunder Powers, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pining Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 15:32:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17900804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsallAvengers/pseuds/itsallAvengers
Summary: Bruce loves Thunder storms, and Thor loves Bruce.





	Freak Weather Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> My first try at a proper ThorBruce fic! Because They are soft! And I love them!

“You’ve been here a while.”

From across the room, Thor watched as Bruce looked up quickly from his book, turning to Thor and then smiling at him in recognition. He was curled up on the large windowsill, a blanket wrapped cosily around his shoulders so that only his head and hands were stuck out of it, available for turning pages and sipping on the coffee at his side. Thor took him in, feeling the immediate urge to smile upon seeing him. Bruce looked adorable like that – comfortable in a way he rarely did. It was lovely to see.

“Hi, Thor,” Bruce said in greeting, voice croaky from disuse. He shuffled upright on the window sill and flicked a hand self-consciously through his messy hair as his cheeks went a little pink. “I, uh, was just catching up on my reading list. Free day, y’know? Gotta spend some time relaxing in this madhouse.”

Thor grinned, walking further into the room. He resisted the urge to head straight over to Bruce and scoop the man up into his arms, swoop down to kiss his forehead and bury his nose into those soft curls. It was a regular restraint he had to enforce upon himself, and one that he was wearily used to by now.  
Such was the nature of unrequited love, unfortunately.

But Bruce as a friend was more than enough, and Thor had long since learned to accept that. He instead came down and sat a good, comfortable distance away from the other man, back leaning into the opposite wall of the window-sill as he looked outside into the New York skyline. It was pouring with rain; huge drops that fell straight down and splashed up against the windows with an incessant pattering. Thor could feel the current running through the air, and then a second later they both watched in fascination as a bolt of lightning cracked through the sky as if it were tearing it open.

“I love Thunderstorms,” Bruce said quietly, and Thor turned to him with a small smile and a raised eyebrow, “they’re very… comforting, in a way.”

“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anyone call a storm ‘comforting’ before,” Thor said with a cocked head. Bruce was a fairly quiet man, but the things that he said never failed to make Thor invariably happy in some way- even when they were mundane things, like ‘can you pass the milk’ or ‘please don’t encourage any electrical storms in the lab’.

The word Clint used often- ‘whipped’- sprang to mind, and… yeah, okay, perhaps Thor could agree with that one. For Bruce Banner, he wasn’t sure if there was anything in the nine realms he would not do.

Across from him, the other man shrugged, the blanket slipping a little off his broad shoulders as they moved. Bruce looked over to him with a soft expression in his eyes. “I just think they’re beautiful,” he told Thor quietly, “power in such a raw form… we’ll build space travel and time machines and control every aspect of life that we can, but not the thunder. We can’t control that.” He paused, before sighing and rolling his eyes at Thor’s dry look. “Okay, well,  _most_  people can’t.”

Thor winked at him, and Bruce laughed. It was a truly wonderful sound, and one Thor could never tire of. They watched one another for a little while, maybe just a second too long, until Thor felt his cheeks go a little pink and he looked back to the skyline at his side. Blushing was, regrettably, a universal thing, and he tended to be in a constant state of redness whenever Bruce was near. The man was just so…so…

Hell, Thor wasn’t even sure how to describe it. He was a God who walked among men, and every day he was reminded of the power he held, the knowledge of the universe that he knew humanity would not be able to grasp for another few thousand years- and yet Bruce Banner still managed to make him feel… weak. But the good sort of weak. He was incredible- one of the brightest minds Thor had ever known, and he was beautiful, and kind, and gentle in ways that Thor couldn’t ever understand. He’d been through so much, but that gentleness had never left him. Thor loved that about him. He loved the man’s strength- not the big angry and green kind, but the dedication. The perseverance. There truly was no one else in the world who could compare to Bruce Banner. Not in Thor’s eyes, anyway.

He felt himself sigh, just a little. A God in love with a mortal; this was how all the tragedies went, wasn’t it? And yet, Thor barely even thought it would be a problem. Bruce didn’t look at him that way, and he probably never would.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, snapping Thor out of his little spiral of thoughts as he turned to the other man, “I’ve just been a bit caught up in my own world today. Do you want something? Like I said, I’m free today, so,” he spread his arms and smiled, “I’m all yours.”

Thor smiled through the clenching of his heart. God, if only. “Nah,” he shook his head and rested his elbows onto his knees. Sparring could wait.  Bruce was happy here. “Just wanted to come visit you.”

The scientist’s nostrils flares as he blushed and looked down at his lap. The shadows of the rain flitted over his face, speckling him with droplet-shapes. Although not many humans agreed with Bruce, Thor certainly did. This sort of weather was just as beautiful as the sun, if not more so.

Then again- as Thor looked over to Bruce, who’d turned back to gaze up at the sky with a soft, gentle look in his eyes- perhaps Thor just had a bias.

 

-

 

Mornings in the Tower were a hectic event, and it was always a scramble to the kitchen in order to get to the food first without it disappearing. What with him and Steve and their constant hunger, Clint’s greediness and Tony’s general desire to hoard his food like a squirrel, it seemed it was always a battle to just get a slice of toast. It had resulted in more than one  _actual_  battle before.

Usually, though, Bruce was around to keep them in check. He held onto the wooden spoon and smacked any wandering hands that threatened to start trouble, stood vigil by the stove and prepared endless amounts of bacon and eggs, and quickly calmed any bickering with threats of turning green and unleashing his rage upon all of them. It was very effective. Like a delicate ecosystem, the team had found their balance in the mornings, and worked together in order to benefit one another to the utmost. Tony and Steve had formed an alliance in which they shared their food, and Natasha usually just picked at everyone’s plates like a vulture, eating her shares and then handing some off to Clint. Thor himself merely stood next to Bruce, allowing himself first pick of all the things that came off the stove. It worked.

Except for the morning when Bruce failed to show up.

“Touch my bacon one more time, Barton, and I’m going to snap every single one of your stupid arrows and then start on your fingers,” Tony snapped at the man across the table, curling his hands protectively around his plate and snarling.

“You don’t even eat all of it!”

“Yeah, but Steve will! Not you!”

Thor watched from his position near the stove as Natasha snuck in and stole one of Tony’s slices of toast from under his arm. He span around in anger, and then Clint took the opportunity to take the bacon while he back was turned. Thor sighed. “Tony, I’ll just put some more on the-“

“-No, it’s okay,” Steve told him, snatching Clint’s entire plate away from him and then sliding it over to Tony, much to the archer’s distress, “we’ve got some more right here.”

Oh God- well that’d done it now. Clint yelled in outrage, standing up from the counter and leaping onto it with a finger pointed accusingly at the pair of superheroes sat opposite him. Thor took another look at the fast-approaching disaster that was building, and hastily decided to vacate the premises and leave them to battle it out with one another. He was too hungry to have to fight for his food. “JARVIS,” he asked as he grabbed for a sweater that was either his or Steve’s, “where’s Bruce?”

The AI was silent for a moment. “He is in his quarters,” he admitted in the end, “but he wishes not to be disturbed.”

Thor frowned. Bruce usually woke early, and he’d often admit that his favourite time of day was breakfast with the team. However, Thor couldn’t fault him for wanting to stay in bed for once. There was only so much of Tony and Clint’s screaming that one could take, after all.

Thor let it slip from his mind as he went over to the nearby Starbucks and bought himself a sandwich there, having a friendly chat with the Barista who served him as he did so. He thought about maybe buying Bruce one too, but eventually decided against it. Bruce said shop-bought sandwiches tasted like plastic, and if he didn’t want to be disturbed, he was probably busy anyway. Instead, he found himself wandering over to the little shop down in some forgotten street-corner, tightly packed in against other bigger and better buildings. He knew Bruce liked to come here to buy his coffee beans when he had the time. Thor wasn’t sure why. They all tasted the same to him. But all the same, he walked in and looked around on the shelves, wondering what in the hell was the flavour that Bruce liked best. He knew he didn’t even need to buy it just now, really. Bruce had plenty in his shelves. But… well, Thor just liked to see the way he smiled; soft and gentle and surprised, like he wasn’t used to be being given gifts.

If Thor had the chance, he would probably never  _stop_  giving the other man gifts. Bruce deserved to be cared for like he was royalty, but he always seemed to think the opposite. It drove Thor insane. More than anything, he simply wished he could make Bruce see himself the way that Thor did.

With a shake of his head, Thor tugged four different packs off the shelves and bundled them onto the counter. He wished for a lot of things, when it came to Bruce. He was wearily resigned to the fact that, though a king he may be, he wasn’t a genie. Some things were just unattainable. But dammit if Thor wasn’t going to try all the same.

By the time he arrived home again, it seemed the breakfast animosity had been resolved. It looked like they’d ordered Chinese food, which even Thor knew was absurd and went against all human etiquette laws. “Where the hell did you even manage to buy this as 10 in the morning?” He asked, poking one of the boxes as he set his bag down on the table. Tony just grunted unintelligibly.

“Know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy,” he said from the couch in the living room, waving an absent hand and then returning to the cartoon program that the whole team were watching. Thor was pretty sure the target audience for said cartoons were five-year old girls, but hey, he wasn’t judging. Instead, he just rolled his eyes and stuffed the bags of coffee into Bruce’s assigned shelf, hoping that they were the ones he liked. Glancing over his shoulder once he was done, he looked over to Steve, wondering whether the other man had remembered the sparring session that they’d agreed to the day before. But Steve seemed to have let it slip from his mind, because he was still in his pyjamas on the couch next to Tony, and from the way that Steve’s arm was wrapped tentatively around the back of the couch and Tony was moving steadily closer into him while Steve just shot him longing glance after longing glance, Thor knew that the other man’s mind was probably…. Occupied.

He huffed in amusement and turned back around with a fond shake of his head. Human affection. Pah. Thor would  _never_  be so nervous when it came to his own feelings. He was not from Earth, he did not have the same qualms about love as they did-

“Thor,” JARVIS said, quiet enough that the rest of the team didn’t hear him from the other room, “Doctor Banner is requesting your presence in his quarters, as soon as possible if you can.”

Thor blinked, his heart doing something funny in his chest. “I thought he didn’t want to be disturbed,” he asked dumbly, “is he—why does he—me? Are you. Uh. Sure about that?”

“Indeed,” JARVIS responded, and he sounded the tiniest bit exasperated, “you, Thor Odinson. I am very certain.”

Thor took a moment, and then nodded hurriedly. “Oh, of course,” he muttered, “of course, I’ll be right there. Tell him I’m coming right away. No, wait- does that sound desperate? Tell him… just tell him I’m coming. No  _wait_ , that sounds dirty, tell him-“

“Doctor Banner has been informed of your imminent arrival,” JARVIS cut in before Thor could lose himself entirely. By that point, he AI had moved from exasperation to mild amusement. “If you would like to make your way to the elevator, I will gladly take you to his quarters.”

Thor nodded hurriedly and dropped the rest of his stuff on the counter. Bruce probably just wanted him to bounce an idea off or test the tensile strength of something. Usually that’s what he summoned Thor for- although admittedly, it was always to the lab and never to his own quarters. Not that going to his quarters was a world-altering event, really- he’d been there plenty of times, he’d just never been  _summoned_. It felt like a bigger deal. Was it more personal to be summoned to a man’s laboratory or a man’s bedroom? In normal circumstances, Thor would say the latter, but this was Bruce. The guy spent 90% of his time in that lab. Maybe this was just a step down as opposed to a step up in their relationship. Maybe Bruce was trying to establish boundaries here- ‘I’ve decided I no longer want you in my lab, but the room I spend no time in and have barely any attachments to is fine’.

He frowned at his reflection in the chrome of the elevator as he stepped inside. Perhaps he was overthinking this just a little bit.

It took twenty seconds for the elevator to arrive at Bruce’s floor, and Thor could admit that in those twenty seconds he’d probably thought through about a hundred different scenarios that had the possibility of playing out once he arrived. He briefly wished that he’d taken the coffee with him. Then he might have been able to get one of those wonderful Bruce Banner smiles that he loved so much. Maybe he should go back for them? Well, he couldn’t really do that unless he smashed his way back through the bottom of the elevator, and that was just stupid. Plus Tony had warned him that any more unnecessary property damage to his tower would mean that Thor got thrown out and he’d have to live in a cardboard box on the street, and so he was slightly more wary now, because he couldn’t quite tell whether or not Tony was joking.

The elevator doors slid open, and Thor stepped out, head peeking around the corner in search of Bruce. The living room was empty, and the blinds drawn to hide the bright sunlight of the day. He couldn’t see anyone there, but a second later he heard a small clattering from the kitchen and he turned his head with a frown, stepping further in. “Hey Bruce,” he called, “you wanted me?”

A second later, the man’s head popped up from under the counter. Thor blinked I surprise. “Hi,” Bruce said, voice strangely uneven, “hi, I’m just…. Sorry, just looking for my tea-bags, I swore I left them in one of these cupboards, dammit.” He ducked back down and there was another clatter, like the man was pulling the entire shelf out. Thor winced at the noise and wandered forward, his brow furrowed. Bruce was a very organised person by nature, and he always liked to keep things clean- something that had resulted in more than one argument when he was sharing a workspace with Tony, who was a disaster on a good day. But his kitchen was completely overturned now; cooking equipment lying everywhere, whole draws taken out of their racks and ransacked. Thor had a feeling that this wasn’t just about the tea, and his heart sank.

“Bruce,” he began, keeping his voice low and gentle, “are you… are you alright?”

Bruce paused, before clearing his throat and nodding jerkily. “I’m fine,” he croaked, “I just… this stupid fucking tea,  _green_  tea, supposed to help calm you down and I can’t find it, I think that’s like some sort of fucking metaphor or something, I don’t fucking know, Jesus, I just—” he broke off, sucking in a sharp, unsteady breath as he fell onto his butt and then palmed a hand across his face. Thor stared at him as he shook. “I need you to watch me,” he choked, “just in case. I’m… I’m really on edge, Thor, if I turn right now I might seriously hurt people.”

The look on Bruce’s face was one that was broken, despairing, and endlessly frustrated. His hands were balled into fists against his face, and Thor could see the effort he was having to expend simply to keep himself from going Green and Hulking out. Thor knew that without intervention, it’d be unlikely Bruce would be able to keep this at bay on his own.

“Hey,” he began, stumbling forward and then getting to his knees next to Bruce, his hands wavering with uncertainty around Bruce’s shoulders before tentatively settling themselves. “You’re not going to turn. I’ve got you, alright? You just need to… find a way to calm down a little. What is it that’s… when did this start?” He tried, looking at Bruce’s strained face and resisting the urge to pull him in for a hug. Humans dealt with stress in very different ways than Asgardians did. They never quite managed to process their trauma quite as well, and it left them with battle-scars in their brains that Thor could didn’t understand much of, but admired them for being able to deal with all the same. Some people liked to be embraced in times like these, but Thor wasn’t sure whether Bruce was one of them yet, and he didn’t want to push it.

“I was mentioned on the news,” Bruce whispered to him, swallowing heavily and looking at the floor, “General Ross, he… was talking about military assets, plans they had- he just mentioned their ‘losses’ over the last few years and I knew… I  _knew_  he was thinking about me, y’know? It’s stupid, it’s dumb, I just…” Bruce coughed, hands shaking harder. “once I’d had that thought, I just remembered all the years I spent running, hiding—fuck, I’m never really going to stop having to do that, am I? I’ll always just be their  _thing_ , their fucking possession, I—”

“Bruce,” Thor said firmly, “take a few deep breaths, okay? You know what happens when your heartbeat gets too fast. Come on, with me. In and out. You’re safe here, okay?” He sucked in a long, slow breath through his nose, fingers squeezing gently against Bruce’s shoulder. “I would never let anything happen to you. None of us would. I promise.

Bruce shut his eyes and synced his breaths with Thor’s, shaky and jagged, but there all the same. Now words were spoken while Thor focused on merely getting Bruce to breathe with him, find some peace in the easy action. Thor had spent a long while looking up how to help someone who was having problems with anxiety after seeing Steve go through something similar one time a few months ago, and not having a single idea what to do. It had made him feel so awful to just stand there helplessly, but he knew better now. Hopefully. “Bruce?” He asked, just to check, “how’s it going in there?”

Tiredly, the other man laughed, leaning forward so his forehead brushed against Thor’s shoulder. “Fuck,” he responded, which ultimately did not sound promising, “I nearly lost my shit over green tea, Thor. What the hell’s wrong with me?”

Thor frowned, unable to stop his hand from moving to cup around the back of Bruce’s neck. “The only thing wrong with this is that you’ve been hunted across the world for years, and that is something that is bound to affect anyone.” He brushed his thumb across the whispy strands of hair at the nape of Bruce’s neck, his mouth tightening as he thought of the people who had made Bruce feel this way. He’d only met Ross once, but he knew a shitstain when he saw one, and that guy really took 1st prize. He made a mental note to do some serious threatening next time he bumped into the General. Politics and laws be damned; if every time Bruce saw his face he ended up in this state, well… Thor would simply have to strongly encourage Ross into staying very well hidden. “You are a man who has been through hell, Bruce. This is not something to be ashamed of.”

Bruce just sighed, sinking a little further into Thor’s hold as if he couldn’t help himself. “I’m sorry,” he murmured, “you were… probably busy. I just—I can’t deal with the Hulk, not right now, and you’re the only one who—” Bruce cut himself off sharply, taking in another breath. Then, almost nervously, he buried himself further into Thor’s chest. “You’re the only one who I can trust without question,” he whispered.

Thor blinked, hands automatically wrapping around Bruce’s body protectively. He hadn’t expected that to be what he’d come out with. Maybe a ‘you’re tough enough not to get hurt by me’ or ‘you are the only one who can subdue me if I need to be’—but trust hadn’t been something he’d considered. But now he thought about it, he supposed it must be a big deal to a man like Bruce Banner. Thor knew of his bad family history, of the father who’d beaten him and the mother who’d left. He knew that Bruce had spent most of his adult life on the run, helping people wherever he could but never being able to stay for fear of being caught.

To Bruce, trust was pretty much a foreign concept. And yet, here he was, curled up in Thor’s arms and doing just that: Trusting him.

Under his embrace, he could still feel Bruce shake. Feel the tenseness of his body, like he expected Thor to reject him. Shun him for his weakness. But there was no weakness to this, and Thor was just glad that Bruce was letting someone in for a change. Letting someone try to help. And Thor… well, Thor could admit, he had a trick or two up his sleeve that literally no-one else on Earth had.

He squeezed Bruce tight while making sure not to hurt him, and then pulled away just a little, keeping his hands warm and firm against the other man’s shoulders. “Your trust means more to me than anything,” he said softly, wishing Bruce knew just how true those words were. But there was no point in pushing that, not right now, so instead he just smiled slowly and glanced around the room. “I can help you look for the teabags if you want?”

Bruce glanced up, wiping hastily at his eyes. He smiled, lopsided and tight, but there. “That’d… that’d be lovely of you, Thanks, Thor.” He caught Thor’s eyes and for a second, it looked like he was going o say something else, but then he blinked and it was gone. “I swear I put them in the kitchen somewhere, but if I didn’t then there’s always some on the communal floor.”

Thor nodded, getting quickly to his feet and offering a hand to Bruce. The man took it, and as their fingers touched, Thor felt the feeling zip its way up his arm and settle over his chest. They looked at eachother again, just for a second too long, before both of them turned and began to search once more. Thor made sure to keep up casual conversation as he did so, ensuring that Bruce didn’t get lost in his own head for too long and was able to have other things to focus on, and although the conversation was fairly one-sided, he could tell that Bruce was listening to him. That he appreciated it.

They did, in fact, find the tea in the cupboard under the sink, for some reason, stored next to the cleaning fluids. Bruce flushed when Thor held them up, before laughing wearily. “Jesus,” he breathed, “I’m a fucking disaster.”

Thor chuckled as he threw the pack into Bruce’s waiting hands and stood back up. “It’s endearing,” he said earnestly, wiping his trousers clean. “Now on second thoughts, throw the bag back. I’ve decided I’m making the tea and you’re going to go and open the blinds, and then sit over by the windowsill just there, okay?”

Bruce made a small face. “I probably shouldn’t,” he muttered, “got a headache. The light won’t help much.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not sunny.”

“Uh. Yeah it is,” Bruce began, “it’s been sunny all day, that’s why I had to shut the blinds in the first-“

“Well it isn’t sunny any more,” Thor told him firmly, with a small smile as he jerked his head over to the windowsill where he’d seen Bruce perch himself a few days previously. “Just go open the blinds and get cosy, okay? I’ll bring your tea in a minute.”

Bruce looked like he was about to continue arguing, but Thor just stared him down until Bruce gave in and started to walk over to the other side of the room with a small smile on his face. Thor grabbed the kettle that Bruce had chucked on the floor in his scramble to find the teabags and propped it back up onto the stove, hoping that he remembered how to make tea properly this time. The last attempt had ended with something very much piss-like in taste, and Thor would rather not offer that up to the man he loved.

He heard Bruce start to laugh as he pulled up the blinds, and Thor glanced behind his shoulder with a warmth in his cheeks as he observed the man fondly. Bruce was staring out into the New York skyline, a disbelieving grin on his face, while on the other side of the glass window the rain poured from clouds that had rapidly formed up above. A few seconds later, there was a crack of lightning that shot through the sky, and the loud rumble of thunder quickly followed.

Thor felt the thrum of electricity pulse quietly through his body, and he smiled to himself. A neat trick that he’d never thought would come in particularly useful up until now.

He prepared the tea with delicacy and care, and then once he was sure it most definitely did not taste like piss this time, he carried it carefully over to Bruce, who was still looking out of the window with a fascinated gaze. Thor noticed his hands had stopped shaking.

“Here,” he offered the cup over to the other man, and Bruce jumped as he spotted Thor standing behind him, but then took it gratefully.

“You’ve just ruined thousands of New Yorker’s days,” Bruce told him, but it didn’t sound like a chastisement, and Bruce was smiling like he couldn’t stop himself, so Thor counted it as a success and simply shrugged, leaning against the wall.

“But I made one person’s day a little better,” he said, “and it’s one person that I can admit I have a little bit of a bias for. The New Yorkers may just have to deal with some rain while I act upon said bias.” He made an apologetic face out of the window. “My bad, guys.”

Bruce’s light laughter filled his ears, and Thor looked down fondly at him as Bruce sipped from his mug. He was soft like this. Grey skies and rainy weather suited him. Then again, what didn’t? Like Thor had said many times before- he had a bias. But hey, at least he could admit it. 

“You know I meant what I said, right?” He blurted, looking back out of the window when he saw Bruce’s head turn his way. “I’d always keep you safe.  _Always_. I know you’ve spent your whole life running from people who hut you, and I know that’s pretty much all you’ve ever known, but it doesn’t have to be that way any more. And if they ever, ever tried to take you, then I’d do everything in my power to get you back home again.” He paused, feeling suddenly as if he’d gone too far, bared too much. He could feel Bruce’s gaze on the side of his face, and he sure as hell didn’t know what prompted him to say what he did next. Maybe the realization that he couldn’t exactly go back on what he’d said, so he may as well just continue onward.

“I’ve lived a long time, and I’ve encountered a damn lot of people,” he said, finally just plucking up the courage to look Bruce in the eye, “but I’ve never met anyone I cared for quite like you. So. Yeah.”

If it hadn’t been obvious before, it sure as hell was now. He could see from the look in Bruce’s eyes, the way he was staring, jaw slack and mouth open, that the declaration most definitely caught him by surprise.

Well. No one had said Thor was the God of Tact.

He smiled softly at Bruce, the edges tinted with sadness. He knew he’d overstepped, that he shouldn’t have said a thing, but he just needed Bruce to  _know_. To understand how important he was, to Thor, to Goddamn everyone. And hell, if worst came to worst and Bruce started to freak out, Thor could just pull out the ‘ignorant Asgardian’ card- say that he’d only meant it as a friend, a colleague, a good ol- team mate, right? He could make it work- and then after that, he could simply love Bruce Banner quietly and wholly until he eventually died-

“Please forgive me if I’m reading this wrong, my emotions are all out of whack today,” Bruce began, dropping the tea jerkily onto the window-sill and slipping off in order to stand in front of Thor. He looked up at him, his face open and vulnerable and slightly terrified for a moment, but then he shut his eyes and leaned up onto the tips of his toes and-

And then kissed Thor.

His lips were chapped. That was the first thing that Thor noticed. He’d bitten them in his anxiety, and Thor could still taste the tiniest remnants of copper on Bruce’s mouth. It was nervous and soft, and Bruce seemed somewhat clumsy with it, as if he hadn’t had much practise- and it was only then that Thor realised he was so busy analysing everything that he wasn’t kissing back, dammit,  _wake up Thor._

With a lurch, he lifted his hands and wrapped them around Bruce’s waist, pulling him in and tilting his head in order to give as good as he got. Bruce hummed in surprise, eyes fluttering open for a second before he smiled a little against Thor’s mouth. It tasted like heaven on his tongue.

It was soft, unrushed. They both pulled back after a few minutes, just looking at one another in delight. “So,” Thor said, attempting nonchalance, “are you… was that a ‘thanks for being a good buddy’ kiss, or, uh, a ‘maybe we could be more than that’ kiss?”

Bruce laughed, leaning his forehead into Thor’s chest and then looking back outside. “You made it rain for me,” he whispered, slightly disbelieving, “you made it rain and helped me find my stupid tea and I’ve been in love with you for months, Thor, Jesus Christ.”

He blinked. “You’ve been… for months?”

“For months.”

“Oh.” Thor paused, before feeling a beam break through his face. He stroked a hand through Bruce’s hair and tilted his face back up so he could kiss those chapped, wonderful lips once more. “Me too,” he said, and the happiness leaked uncontrollably through his voice, like a pipe had burst inside his heart. Bruce  _loved_  him. Bruce loved him and they’d just kissed, and he wasn’t looking quite so pale any more and that was all Thor could ever want, really. He kissed him again because he couldn’t resist, and Bruce started to giggle against his mouth, making it tickle on Thor’s bottom lip like the brush of a feather.

“You’re gonna have confused the complete shit out of all the meteorologists that are seeing this,” he said to Thor as he raised a hand back out to the window, where rain was pattering incessantly against the glass.

Thor just shrugged, twisting them around then unlocking his knees so he fell onto the windowsill behind him. He pulled Bruce along with him, until the smaller man was sat on his lap with a happy little blush and a skewed pair of glasses. Thor gently corrected them with his ring finger, smiling when Bruce just went even pinker.

“How are you feeling?” Thor asked him, letting his fingers come to settle against Bruce’s neck, checking to see how his pulse rate was doing. A little higher than it should be, but then again, that might be because of reasons that weren’t just anxiety. Thor’s own heart was probably doing the same, because Bruce was just sitting there on his lap like it was the most normal thing in the world, and five minutes ago Thor would have never thought that possibly in a million years. He could hardly even fathom it  _now_ , to be honest.

But it was real. It was happening, because he could still taste Bruce’s green tea on the back of his tongue, and he could feel the other man’s warmth seep through into his own skin and those were feeling that Thor could never quite get right in dreams.

Bruce leaned down, kissed him again. “I’m feeling like I want to spend the rest of the day here, with you,” he admitted, his voice soft and tender. “I can’t… I just want to not have to deal with everything else right now. I want to watch the rain fall.”

Thor smiled, watching as another bolt of lightning arced through the sky. Below him in New York, thousands of irritated people were probably running for shelter in sun-dresses and shorts, furious that their days out had been cut short by the freak weather. But Bruce was no longer shaking, and his eyes weren’t as panicked, and Thor would take on a million angry Americans if he got to make Bruce happy at the end of it.

He felt like he was going to wake up any second now and realise that none of this was real, that Bruce wasn’t here, that things hadn’t gone so right. But until then…

“Let’s watch the rain fall,” he agreed, kissing Bruce’s temple and turning to face the window.


End file.
